


The Useless Prince

by ixieko



Series: FFVII Folk Tales [24]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25446634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixieko/pseuds/ixieko
Summary: "Long, long ago there was a small kingdom. On its west border it was protected by tall mountains, to the north spread its waves the great Ocean, and its eastern and southern borders were demarked by a river. It was a very small kingdom; a single castle surrounded by a town with old, half-crumbled outer walls, three villages, six fields, four pastures, two bridges across the river, and a single guard tower high in the mountains, centuries old and long abandoned."Gast tells 2-weeks-old Aerith a tale; he and Ifalna have a conversation.
Series: FFVII Folk Tales [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/380941
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	The Useless Prince

Long, long ago there was a small kingdom. On its western border it was protected by tall mountains, to the north spread its waves the great Ocean, and its eastern and southern borders were demarked by a river. It was a very small kingdom; a single castle surrounded by a town with old, half-crumbled outer walls, three villages, six fields, four pastures, two bridges across the river, and a single guard tower high in the mountains, centuries old and long abandoned.

It was a peaceful and prosperous kingdom, and everything was well in it, with the exception of one problem: the King didn’t have an heir. For years and years he and the Queen waited for the gods to bless them with a child, but the King was getting older and older and his hair and beard greyer and greyer and still no child was born.

Once, a rumor reached the kingdom that somewhere in the north, across the ocean, lived a true sorceress. Not one of those pretenders with fake magic crystals that were only good to cheat money out of people’s hands, and not one of those evil witches capable only of curses and jinxes and poisoning, but one who could do real, good magic, the magic of wind and water, and didn’t even need any magic Gems for it as she was rumored to be from the long-lost nation of the Ancients. In drought she summoned the rain, in storm she calmed the raging seas and prevented ships from sinking, and in plague she called forth a healing wind that cured people.

Hearing those stories, the King and the Queen sent a messenger to the sorceress, asking her to come to them. Soon she arrived, and, learning of their affliction, said:

“I can help you, but be careful: this is your only chance of having a child. Don’t waste it.”

And so she lit a fire in the fireplace and put a cauldron on it, and boiled water, and added thirty-seven different herbs in it, and stirred the concoction tirelessly for seventeen hours, and then took it off the fire and cooled it for another seven hours, and poured it into a vial, and brought the vial to the King.

“Here, take this potion. Drink half of it, give the other half to your Queen, and with Gaia’s blessing you will have your child on Miranda’s Mercy when the Sun turns from winter to spring.”

And with that, she was out of the castle without as much as a goodbye.

The King did as the sorceress advised. Soon the Queen felt that she was with a child, and, as the sorceress had predicted, the heir was born right on the day of Miranda’s Mercy.

Great was the King’s and the Queen’s joy, but they could never be completely at ease as they remembered the sorceress’ words: “This is your only chance of having a child.” The nurses were to watch the boy day and night, never to leave him alone; even in his sleep one of them was to sit beside his crib and listen if he was breathing alright. As he started to crawl and then walk, he was confined to the room with no furniture he could fall from, no items he could harm himself with.

The boy, meanwhile, grew healthy, never the one to catch a cold, and very pretty with his long golden hair and big blue eyes and charming smile, but he had such a bad temper that all castle servants cried their tears of relief when he was asleep. No one was allowed to refuse his wishes, except his parents; and the single rule that he had to follow was to always stay inside the castle.

As the boy was close to turning ten years old, the kingdom military adviser who was the King’s oldest friend and his mentor, came to the King and the Queen and asked them, “When will the Prince start his battle training?”

“He is still way too young for such dangerous things,” the King answered.

“But sire,” the adviser said, “Your Magesty’s training started when you were mere seven years old! Certainly, by now the Prince is more than ready! He is not a helpless infant anymore and you cannot continue to keep him sheltered!”

The King was furiuos; he sent the adviser away, threatening him with exile if he ever brought up the topic again.

And so the Prince grew up in his rooms, surrounded by servants who saw to all his needs and never said “no” to him. He was not allowed outside still; in winters it was too cold, in spring too breezy, in summers it was either too hot or too rainy, and in autums, of course, too muddy. The Prince wasn’t trying to get out, though. He was properly entertained and cared for and everything his Father and Mother had told him about the world was how awful it was and how much better in was in the castle. At sixteen he couldn’t even dress himself, much less look after himself, so spoiled he was.

Meanwhile, a group of bandits crossed the kingdom’s border through the mountains and camped in a nearby forest. From the merchants they robbed they learned about the Prince and his overly caring parents who valued their son above all treasures in the world, and decided to kidnap him for ransom.

They came to the castle and said that they were lookin for work, and were given a job of digging a new cesspit in courtyard behind the castle. As soon as they were left alone they kidnapped a couple of servants, changed into their clothes, sneaked into the castle through a backdoor and lured the boy out, promising to show him something interesting. Then they knocked him out, hid him in the wheelbarrow under a tarp, poured some dirt over it, and left the castle.

When he came to his senses, the Prince found himself in an unfamiliar room, round in shape, with walls made of old withered stone and narrow windows high under the ceiling. A wobbly old table stood in the middle, a clay jug and a wooden plate with cheese and bread stood on it, and a hard chair with broken backrest beside it. No one was in the room beside the Prince, and the door was locked tight.

The Prince shouted for help. No one answered. He sat on the hard stool, took a bite of bread, spit it out as it was stale. Tried cheese, and it was too dry. He pushed it away; he was used to the best foods, not this peasant’s dinner. Drank from the jug, and it was plain water. He spat it out and put the jug back on the table; he was used to finest juices and compotes, not this peasant’s drink. Sighed the Prince heavily, woefully. If he could climb, he could’ve climbed out of the window, but who would allow him to climb? It was too dangerous. Could’ve kicked the door out if he was strong enough, but how would he grow strong if he was never allowed to lift anything heavier than a spoon. Could have waited for the kidnappers to come and overpowered them if he had bravery and skill, but where would it come from if he was never allowed to do anything but laze around. And even if he managed to escape, where would he go? He had never been outside the castle and had no idea what was around it, where he was now, or how to get back home.

Sat the Prince on the mouldy bedcovers, hid his face in his hands, and wept bitterly.

The Prince’s disappearance was soon discovered. The King was so furious that he wanted to send all the servants to the gallows; the Queen barely managed to talk him down. The town and the nearby forest was searched for three days, but no trace of the Prince or his kidnappers was found. What to do?

And so the King gathered his people on the town square and proposed a handsome reward to anyone who would find the Prince and return him back home: half of the gold from kingdom’s treasury. The bandits were right there in the crowd, rubbing their hands in anticipation.

Meanwhile, a warrior maiden from the Western Isles was traveling the road that led through the mountains near the old guard tower where the Prince was imprisoned. She was a young woman on her sixteenth spring who just left her homeland for the first time. Her hair, black as a raven’s wing, was tied tightly at the back of her head to keep it from getting into her eyes; a sea bird was tattooed on her left temple, a long sword strapped to the saddle, a knife peeked out of her knee-high boots. She was wearing a chainmail, but carried her helmet in her arm, as the day was hot. Hearing someone weeping in the old tower, she stopped, dismounted from her black chocobo and went to investigate.

The bandits who stayed behind to guard the Prince weren’t a match for her; she only had to disarm one of them, and both ran away screaming in fear. She kicked in the door, not bothering searching for the keys, and found out that there was, indeed, a prisoner sitting on a bed, only not a girl as she thought, but a boy. A very good-looking boy at that, with long golden hair and sky-blue eyes, clothed in garments suit for a king, with a green gemstone pendant on his chest, and a tear-stained face.

“What happened to you?” the warrior maiden asked.

“I was k-kidnapped,” the boy sobbed in answer.

The maiden looked at him with disbelief. “By whom? Those who were guarding you? They are just common bandits, with only sticks and some crude clubs for weapons. Could you not fight them off with a sword or magic?” She looked at his pendant, noticing tiny red sparks dancing in its depths. “Certainly your could have escaped even bare-handed, as you have a Fire Gem on you? Did they drug you or put you under a spell?”

“N-no! I c-cannot fight or use magic,” the boy sobbed further. “I d-do not know how! I did not even know I had a magic G-Gem on me, I thought it was just jewelry!”

The warrior maiden shook her head and came to the bed, extending her hand towards the Prince. “Let us bring you home,” she said.

The Prince sniffled a couple of times and finally stopped crying, took her hand, stood up, and followed her out of the tower, thinking inside his head that he won’t agree to laze around anymore, but would insist on learning how to defend himself.

Soon the night fell and they had to stop a short way away from the road, in a small meadow on the mountain side beside a clear stream. The maiden fed her chocobo, then took some potatoes out of the bag and threw them at the Prince’s feet, followed by a small kitchen knife in a leather sheath.

“Peel them,” she said. “I’ll get the firewood.”

The Prince looked at the potatoes with suspision. “What are those?” he asked. “And what do you mean by _peel them_?”

The warrior maiden explained, frowning in confusion, “These are potatoes. You peel their skin off with a knife and wash them in the stream, then I’ll boil them in water with salt and some herbs. It’ll be our supper as I had no chance to hunt today.”

The Prince crouched down, poked a potato with his index finger and grimaced when the finger got dirty with the dust. “It is not a Prince’s job to cook,” he said proudly. “You will make dinner for me, and I will eat it, though I have to say that potatoes are a peasant’s food unsuitable for someone of my position.”

“Your position?” The maiden scowled at him, making the Prince squirm a little farther away from her. “You position, dear Prince, is that of a prisoner that I resqued out of goodness of my heart. I am not your father’s subject and I am most certainly not your servant. We are equals here, and if you want to eat, you will cook with me, and if you won’t do your share of work, we will part our ways and you will have to get home on your own.”

The Prince fell silent, opening and closing his mouth as a fish out of water, as he was not accustomed to anyone telling him “no”. The maiden left to gather firewood; the boy sat in silent shock for a while, and then took the knife out of its sheath with clumsy hands and tried to peel a potato.

When the maiden returned, she found two potatoes peeled almost to nothing and covered in blood stains, two still whole, one in the Prince’s hands being crudely peeled, and one simply gone. The Prince’s fingers were covered in small cuts. The maiden sighed.

“How are you so useless, Prince?”

The boy furrowed his brow and didn’t answer, stubbornly keeping on peeling off the potato skin and cutting his own in the process. She sat beside him and showed how to peel it properly, and then asked, “Where did the last potato go?”

“I wanted to wash it in the stream,” the Prince muttered. His cheeks and ears colored. “It got away.”

“Useless,” the maiden sighed.

As they finished their supper and laid on the ground to sleep, the Prince asked, “Do you always live like that? Do you have to defend yourself, and cook your food, and, um,” he hesitated, trying to remember what else was dome by the servants, “er, wash your clothes… and… everything else… all by yourself?”

“Of course,” she answered simply. “I tend to my chocobo, and wash and mend my own clothes, I cook my food and sharpen my sword, and I don’t rely on any servants to do any of that. I am a free maiden.”

“I want to be free too,” the Prince muttered, turning on his side in search of a more comfortable position. “Only I doubt my father the King would allow me. He doesn’t even let me out of the castle. And sharp objects like swords and knives? Pfft! I’m not even allowed to eat with a fork.”

“Well, then you will have to fight for it,” the maiden said. “Is there a reason for him to behave like this? Was there ever a danger to your life?”

“There was never any danger to my life. But in order for me to be born, they had a sorceress from the North use magic, as they could not have children otherwise. And they are afraid that if I will die there will be no heir to the throne.”

The maiden hummed thoughtfully but said nothing more.

By the midday on the next day they arrived at the castle. The King and the Queen were overjoyed at the Prince’s safe return. The King invited the warrior maiden to come into the castle to receive the proposed reward: half of the kingdom’s gold kept in the treasury.

“I appreciate your generosity,” the maiden answered, “but I do not need such a large amount of gold.”

“What reward do you want, then?” the King asked. “For my son’s resque I am willing to fulfill any wish of yours.”

“Any at all?” The maiden asked, hiding her smirk, and took a brief glance at the Prince who stood beside his parents looking extremely unhappy for someone who just returned to his own home. “Then promise me that you will stop your ridiculous treatment of your son, for he is not a baby anymore and has to learn to do the things he needs to do as an adult.”

The Queen protested, “We cannot let him in danger! If we lose him, there will be no heir to the throne!”

The Prince straightened up at that and exclaimed, “And what kind of a king will I be, Mother, if I will never learn anything but how to laze around and mistreat my servants? What kind of a ruler will I be, Father, if I cannot even protect myself, much less the common people, and know nothing of the struggles they face? I have to learn to be an adult, and if there is any danger, then I will overcome it!”

The Queen froze, looking at her son with wide eyes. In that moment, a small woman’s figure struggled through the crowd and stopped beside the warrior maiden. Looking at her, the King and the Queen recognized the sorceress that so many years ago gave them the potion.

“Your son is right,” the sorceress said. “And I am very sorry, child,” she continued, turning to the Prince, “that my careless words made your parents so afraid of losing you that they very nearly lost you in the end. I hope they will realise their mistake now.”

The King and the Queen appeared to be deep in thought at the sorceress’ words. The warrior maiden smiled contentedly, then turned and walked away with her chocobo in tow.

Seeing that she was gone, the Prince rushed after her and caught up at the town’s gate. The servants and advisers followed, crying for the Prince to come back, but stopped at a distance seeing that he was not trying to run out of town.

For a moment, the Prince stood rooted to the spot, red in the face and breathing heavily, and then, having visibly steeled himself, blurted out, “Marry me!”

The maiden laughed. “Well, I like you. You have a good heart, despite being such a useless Prince. Hovewer, the customs of my people demand that you best me in a battle before proposing.”

“I will do so!” The Prince said loudly, and then added in a much softer voice, “but not right now, I guess. Will you give me… um… three months?”

The maiden laughed more. “I will give you two years,” she said. “I am heading to the east and will visit your kingdom again on my way back, and if you will still be willling, we will battle. But beware, Prince; if you fail, then you will have to wait five more years as my next destination lies in the far South.”

And with that she hopped on her black chocobo and was gone, while the Prince stood and looked at her departure until she disappeared in the distance, and then he turned and walked back home.

Since that day the Prince never allowed his parents to keep him locked up inside the castle. Although the Queen, and especially the King, did not give up without a fight, their son’s persistence won in the end, and soon he learned to be the Prince that he wanted to become since he met the warrior maiden.

* * *

“You _are_ aware that she’s only two weeks old, Gast? That’s a bit too young for fairy tales.”

“Um… yes, I am aware, but she was fussy and the sound of my voice seems to calm her down.”

“Why not sing a lullaby?”

A sigh. “I did. Eleven times in a row. Then I got tired of it and decided to try a tale. How was your walk, Ifalna?”

“It was… good, I suppose. Very cold, I nearly froze my nose off, but the pine trees were so beautiful. I missed you, though.”

“We missed you too.”

“This tale you were telling wasn’t from that book you had in Nibelheim, was it, Gast?”

“No, it wasn’t. This one is from a book my mother used to read to me when I was a child.”

“And you still remember it by heart, all those years later.”

“Eh, I remember a lot of useless things, my dear. That’s the curse of having a good memory.”

“They aren’t always useless, are they? The tales, for example. They teach us good things sometimes. How not to be a completely awful parent, for example.”

“If only. I have read so many of them over the years, and still learned nothing. Remained a useless, er, Prince, until the very end.”

“You found your Ancient in the end, remember?”

“Maybe it would’ve been better if I didn’t. For you, and for everyone else.”

“You’re in a mood today. Why? Did something happen?”

“No, it’s just…”

“Just… what?”

“It’s… eh, well… just a stupid dream I had tonight. Nothing to concern you with, Ifalna. I’ll get over it.”

“You don’t have to get over it on your own. Tell me, okay? What was the dream about?”

“It was… My years in the Midgar University. The friendship I had with Shinra and Valentine…”

“You were close.”

“We were the best friends. You know, Shinra was a completely different person back then. So young, so full of ideas on how to improve our society. He went against his father, you know? Refused to profit off the weapon production, switched to Mako. Clean energy, as we thought back then. Clean, limitless, energy… He wanted to make the world a better place for everyone. To get rid of illnesses, of hunger, of poverty… I looked up to him. We all were.”

“He was wealthy, too.”

A chuckle. “I wasn’t from a poor family myself, by any means. His wealth didn’t really matter, it was his ideals that attracted us to him. What he was to us, to me, back then… it’s hard to describe. It was like he was our guiding light.”

“You sound like you had a crush on him.”

“…Maybe I had. Or, well, _definitely_ had. On, eh, some level. Not physical, at least I don’t think so - Ifalna, don’t laugh at me!”

“Sorry, sorry. You are so flustered. You’re squirming! So it wasn’t just a crush, you were _in love_ with him! Were you an _item_?”

“I wasn’t stupid enough to tell him anything!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop laughing now. I’m sorry. So, what happened then?”

“After we all graduated, and he took a position in his father’s company, he started several projects we took part in… the production of electric energy from Mako was one of them. I wasn’t very interested in it, but participated all the same. It was our path to a better future for everyone. He called me the brains of the operation… His father didn’t approve of those side projects. For him, weapon production was the work of his life, and he never understood why his son refused to continue on that path. They had some spectacular shouting matches about it.”

“Shinra was… against war, back then?”

“He was. He still is, I think… it’s his definition of war that’s changed.”

“And the war with Wutai doesn’t fit that definition?”

“No. In his mind, it was Wutai that caused the conflict, and he is only protecting himself and his Company.”

“Was it not started by Wutai? Come on, Gast, the war started when their army attacked the power plant construction site in Tamariske and burned the whole city down!”

“It’s the official version.”

“What?!”

“Wutai did attack the power plant construction site. Tamariske was on neutral territory and had a treaty with Wutai. When its leaders decided to accept Shinra’s offer to build the power plant, Wutai protested. When the construction started, Kisaragi sent his troops to stop it. They occupied the construction site, locked up the workers in a storehouse, and set up camp near it, at the outskirts of the city. But they didn’t kill anyone, as far as I know. To liberate the city, Shinra ordered the camp bombed. But… they didn’t take into account that the wind that day was blowing from the same side where the camp was. The city was old, mostly wooden houses, narrow streets. The weather was extremely dry, and wind was very strong. Bombs ignited the dry grass, or maybe one of them landed on a house instead of the tents… the city burned down to embers within half an hour.”

“That’s… I didn’t know that.”

“Nobody did but the senior management. The handful survivors were all arrested and imprisoned. I have no idea what happened to them… It was all done to protect the public image of the Company, and to paint Wutai as the sole aggressor.”

“And no one thought to protest? No one close to Shinra talked to him, tried to explain that that was wrong?!”

“As far as I know, no one. Not everyone was okay with it, though. Valentine left the Company. He didn’t want to be associated with Shinra, although he still accepted the small grants that I could procure for his expeditions, and sometimes he agreed to teach a short course at the University.”

“Why didn’t _you_ leave?”

“I still believed in the vision of the future that we had when we were young. I still thought that my place was in Shin-Ra where I could do the best I could to bring about that future. I thought, What does the loss of five hundred innocent lives mean when building those plants will help us save thousands, maybe millions of lives? I felt bad about them, of course I did… but it wasn’t a deal breaker for me the way it was for the others who left. From then on, I… looked the other way. Pretended to not see what was happening. I was… good at keeping my eyes averted… for a long time.”

“So that was the beginning of the end, then…”

“No, that was, er, the _end_ of the end. The moment we all decided that the needless loss of innocent lives was acceptable… it was the end to all our dreams. I didn’t realise it at the time, of course. I’m ashamed at how long it took me to realise it. But the beginning of it… it was very gradual. The definition of the acceptable methods of achieving our dream future gradually changed with time… until it came to this.”

“Mm-hmm.”

A long pause.

“If I told you all of this before, Ifalna, you would probably never want a relationship with me, would you?”

“Well… you told me this now, and I still love you, so…”

“How… how can you forgive me so easily?”

“I didn’t. I can’t forgive you for something like that, I don’t have that power. I wasn’t there, Gast. I wasn’t the one that suffered. I wasn’t one of the Tamariske victims, and I wasn’t among any other victims of any of the other instances of Shinra valuing his dreams over innocent people’s lives. I wasn’t there! But I am here, now, with you. And you regret your inaction. And you are trying to protect me from Shinra. You want to do better. This matters, to me, this matters _a lot_ to me.”

“I l-love you, Ifalna.”

“And I, you.”

Another pause.

“Waaah! Waah!”

“Oh, look who woke up. Give her to me, Gast, she’s probably hungry.”


End file.
